1. Field of Art
The disclosure generally relates to the field of delivery of media files in a distributed environment such as IP (internet protocol) transit networks, content delivery networks and peer-assisted networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
The amount of video traffic over networks, such as the Internet, has been increasingly significantly over the past few years. This increase is being driven by increased user consumption of videos—such as user-generated short clips, as well as commercially produced TV shows and movies—as well as increasing resolution, and hence the increase in bytes of data that comprise such videos.
Currently, typical ways to deliver videos comprise using video servers, hosted in a centralized set of datacenters. In this scenario, when a user requests a video the data comprising that video is streamed, or downloaded, or progressively downloaded, to that user.
The infrastructure, and hence the expense, involved in accomplishing this delivery includes the costs of servers, routers, load balancers, network lines, and other such networking gear and transit mechanisms. The costs, roughly, increase linearly with increasing volume. In general, the bytes delivered increase with increasing video bytes being consumed at viewing devices. In addition the costs, and the infrastructure needs, have to accommodate a volume of traffic that can easily support the peak rates of such traffic. Further, the quality of video playback is, in general, constrained by the weakest network capacity between the server and the viewing device.
The art lacks, inter alia, a system and method that addresses the set of issues described above and provides a video delivery solution that delivers videos by utilizing network infrastructure more efficiently, allowing for advantages such as lower cost of delivery, better playback quality and reducing needs to invest in expensive video delivery infrastructure.